It’s National Take A Hike Day! Some of the best places in the…

It’s National Take A Hike Day! Some of the best places in the country to enjoy a walk outdoors are on public lands. National parks, wildlife refuges and recreation areas – as well as National Scenic Trails, National Recreation Trails and National Historic Trails – are amazing places to exercise, marvel at stunning landscapes, learn incredible stories and make lasting memories. Here’s a great view from the famous South Kaibab Trail at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Where will you #FindYourWay? Photo by Michael Quinn, National Park Service.

Mastering The Beautiful But Difficult Art Of Letting Go

“The key to being happy is knowing you have the power to choose what to accept and what to let go.” – Dodinsky

Fears, doubts, past events, unpleasant memories, bad conversations – these are some of the factors that contribute to our unhappiness.

Our mind has the tendency to hold onto those things for long, creating misery. For instance, if someone said bad words to you, your mind will keep on clinging to it until another event happens.

Unless you learn how to let things go, you won’t be able to embrace every moment of life and live it to the fullest. You won’t be able to enjoy even the world’s best luxuries.

In this article, you’ll learn the best tips for mastering the art of letting go.

Learn to Accept Before You Learn How to Let Things Go

More than half of our problems begin when we start questioning the things around us. For instance, suppose you are stuck in a bad traffic jam and there’s no way out for you.

There are two ways in which you can handle this scenario.

You could start yelling at people and vent out your frustration but this can make things even worse. Or you could keep calm and use this time to do some thinking. You could sit quietly and enjoy the music being played on the FM.

Now, what usually happens?

We choose to react negatively to the things around us. When thoughts bother us or a past event troubles us, we start questioning, explaining or justifying it. This leads to more chaos and confusion.

The best thing you can do at any moment is to accept it as it is.

When you accept it, your mind comes to rest immediately. With a stable state of mind, you can decide what can be done to make the situation better. Such decisions usually never end up in regret or guilt. Also, accepting things can help you to move on quickly from events and situations.

Remember Death

letting go

What are you really holding onto? How long will you hold onto it?

In all those moments when you find it difficult to let go, just remember that one day this is all going to be over. This very realization takes away the stiffness in your mind and body. When you remember death, you are able to honor life.

There are many people who have come before you, had been in the same situation as you and may have even left the world by now. So, there’s no point in worrying or holding onto things. Enjoy the moment you have now and just let go!

Have Faith

What keeps us from letting go of our anxieties and fears? It’s the lack of faith.

Lack of faith leads to insecurities and fears in us. That’s why faith is the biggest blessing you can ask for. With faith and confidence that you will get what you need at the right time, you can easily let go of your fears and worries.

We all have experienced this at some point.

There have been moments when you badly needed money and somebody out of nowhere came to help you. Whenever you need some help, someone always finds a way to be there for you.

That’s because of faith, isn’t it? So, have faith and let go!

Meditate Regularly

meditate regularly

Meditation is a highly recommended activity for mastering the art of letting go and living in the present moment. Meditation helps you get rid of negative emotions, stress, and everything that bothers you. It gives you the power to channel your thoughts in a positive direction.

Practicing meditation twice a day keeps you away from impressions, events, and happenings in the outer world. It helps you stay in the present moment and do your tasks with sincerity and dedication.

See Also: The Profound Effects Of Meditation On The Mind

Bottom Line

With practice and patience, you will eventually learn how to let things go, particularly those that bother you. You’ll realize that anxiety and fear are not worth your precious time and peace of mind.

Let go of things and be happy right now!

See Also: 12 Stressful Things To Let Go Of If You Want To Live A Calm Life

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The Truth About Tinder Dating

For a lot of people, Tinder dating is one of the best things that ever happened. There, they can meet a lot of potential partners who can get into a relationship with them. While some are successful, others aren’t.

So, you’ve downloaded the app and placed a 10/10 selfie as your profile photo. You giggled to yourself at your clever bio. Now, should you begin swiping?

A big “No”.

You ask why?

its a match tinder
Via cnet

– Oh hell no, he’s from the Valleys.
– His chest is SO hairy!
– He’s got a dog- way too big of a commitment.
– He’s a farmer. I’m not ready to be shoveling shit at 5 am.
– Why on earth is he using the butterfly Snapchat filter?
– 5’8″? Nope, he’s vertically challenged.
– Why is it ALWAYS the ugly one in a group photo?
– Okay, he’s interested in Politics, History, and Sociology. I feel like he’s far too intelligent for me.
– Ugh! He’s actually pouting!
– Is he seriously doing that pose? I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a joke.

And here’s more:

– Swearing at the camera. Charming!
– His sunglasses are actually offensive to my eyes. Ew!
– 19 is a bit TOO young, although he is fit.
– No hair. Pass.
– Why is he carrying one of those fake Gucci shoulder bags? The worst creation I’ve ever seen.
– ‘My 3-year-old boy is my world’. Oh, no. I’m not ready for that kind of commitment.
– Ooh, this guy? Fit- not.

So, why are women so shallow on Tinder? People can’t stop judging each other there.

The Real Deal with Tinder

Tinder is a genius app if you’re self-obsessed and if you enjoy rating people like you’re Tyra Banks from America’s Next Top Model. Unfortunately, not everyone you’ll see in that app can pass your standards.

There’s a good chance you could be swiping 32-year old, Carlsberg-swigging Neil who works in the garage and frequents students’ house parties because he’s not ready to grow up.

And you know what?

There are quite a few Neils in the Tinder world. In fact, I have dated a few of them.

tinder logo

Tinder dating unleashes a whole new world that I wasn’t definitely ready for…

1. Dating a 33-year old guy who lived at home and sent me photos of which cardi he should wear for work.
2. Going for pizza with a roid head who had a secret fetish of pulling on my double chin. I genuinely wish this was a lie.
3. Being taken to the cinema and my date falling asleep on me halfway through Crimson Peak. I really liked that film, you know.
4. Being sent a wrong text message basically saying that I was one of four he was dating. When asked what number I was, he said two. Damn.
5. During university, I actually considered letting Darren come around and massage my feet for £100.

So, does Tinder work?

tinder app
Via thetechnews

I am sure that you can get a few dates (with Neil) there or maybe free food. However, I really don’t think Tinder is the one for marriage.

Well, it didn’t work for me. Although I did have a giggle at Neil 1, 2 and 3, I feared that when I am 30 years old, I’ll be sitting on my sofa watching Bridget Jones and convincing myself that Neil from Cardiff would look okay- if he shaved his sideburns & stopped wearing socks with his Jesus sandals.

Swipe you later girls and guys!

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What’s in a T-Shirt?

MoMA’s “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” refers less to a period of time than to a way of relating to time itself—of dealing with and mingling the past, present, and future. The show features items that have been invented anew, used for present needs, or re-appropriated self-consciously to signal one’s identity, for political purposes, for nostalgic reasons, or simply as irony. Together, the exhibition and catalog present what could be considered a fashion “canon” for contemporary life.  

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Norwegian Woods

Edvard Munch was never simply a Norwegian artist. His appeal, like his own life, has always been both local and cosmopolitan at the same time. He may be best known internationally for his anguished paintings of the 1890s, especially for the group of works he created between 1893 and 1910 and called, in German, Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature). In Norway, on the other hand, he is at least as well known, and deservedly so, for his monumental paintings in the Festival Hall, dedicated to the sun and its pale, oblique Nordic light. Two recent exhibitions, one just closed in Oslo, one just opening in New York, suggest the broad range of this complicated but consistently capable artist.

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The B&N Podcast: National Book Award Winner Jesmyn Ward

We originally published our podcast episode with novelist Jesmyn Ward back in September.  We’re highlighting it again as we congratulate the author on her win of the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing.

Every author has a story beyond the one that they put down on paper. The Barnes & Noble Podcast goes between the lines with today’s most interesting writers, exploring what inspires them, what confounds them, and what they were thinking when they wrote the books we’re talking about.

Jesmyn Ward’s writing marries a devastating realism with a unique sensitivity to the long echoes of violence and trauma. Her National Book Award-winning novel Salvage the Bones brought mythic resonance to the ordeal of a family from a town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast during the days just before and after the devastation of hurricane Katrina. Her new novel Sing, Unburied, Sing nods to William Faulkner and Toni Morrison with a tale of addiction, imprisonment, love and struggle — told by the living, the dying and by ghosts. In this episode, Miwa Messer talks with Jesmyn Ward about her electric fiction.

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In Jesmyn Ward’s first novel since her National Book Award–winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America. Ward gives us an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi’s past and present that is both an intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle.

Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high; Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man. When the white father of Leonie’s children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise.

Click here to see all books by Jesmyn Ward.

Like this podcast? Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher to discover intriguing new conversations every week.

 

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Russia’s Gay Demons

Early in Vladimir Putin’s first presidency I spoke to a Moscow banker, with reason to care on this point, who said he detected no trace of anti-Semitism in Putin personally, but that Putin would encourage popular anti-Semitism in a second if he thought that doing so would serve his interests. So far, Putin has not felt the need to demonize Russia’s Jews. He has instead identified the enemy within as Russia’s homosexuals, whose persecution is one of the main themes of The Future Is History, Masha Gessen’s remarkable group portrait of seven Soviet-born Russians whose changing lives embody the changing fortunes and character of their country as it passed from the end of Communist dictatorship under Mikhail Gorbachev to improvised liberalism under Boris Yeltsin and then back to what Gessen sees as renewed totalitarianism under Putin.

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Dive into adventure at Biscayne National Park in Florida….

Dive into adventure at Biscayne National Park in Florida. Stretching out from a shoreline fringed with mangrove forest, the majority of the park covers the aquamarine waters of Biscayne Bay and extends into the Atlantic Ocean. Boating and fishing are popular activities, but some of the best views of Biscayne are found under the water, exploring the third largest coral reef in the world. Photo by Shaun Wolfe, National Park Service.

Are You Too Complacent In A Relationship?

Do you remember when you would check the mirror, adjust your hair and perhaps, put on cologne before seeing your mate? You wanted to put your best foot forward to make sure you would impress and attract.

Now, let’s be real.

After a few years in a relationship, we become so comfortable with one another that a lot of those little details don’t happen anymore.

Becoming complacent in a relationship is a double-edged sword. It shows that the love is unconditional and that our partner accepts us for who we are, good things and bad. The problem, however, is that you no longer put the effort you were giving before. When we start acting as though those details don’t matter anymore, a lot of things in the relationship change.

Now, if you are starting to worry about being complacent in a relationship, check these signs below.

You no longer hide the array of sounds (and smells) that your body produces

You may be thrilled that your relationship is close enough that you no longer have to leave the room every time you let out a bit of air. Unfortunately, your partner may not share your enthusiasm. Consider it something to keep to yourself and take it somewhere else whenever possible.

You have lost interest in personal grooming

It isn’t necessary to slap on some aftershave each time you walk past the mirror. In fact, it would probably be an overkill.

You should, however, make it a point to shower daily and brush your teeth regularly. Yes, your partner may love you no matter what but you shouldn’t make her work to remind herself why.

You mumble some version of “love you babe” frequently and without eye contact

Remember when you first told her you love her? You probably looked into her eyes when you said those words. You definitely felt their meaning.

If “I love you” has morphed almost exclusively into “love you babe” or some version of that, you probably have forgotten what those words are supposed to convey. It’s time to remember and make a change.

You think “dates” are no longer needed

no date

Believe it or not, dates are still necessary. What brought you together as a couple and helped you gain the comfort and closeness you now have was developed through dating.

Just because you are a few years into things doesn’t mean you should stop putting effort. People (yes, even your partner) change and grow continually. If you don’t spend enough time to enjoy each other’s company, you’ll eventually grow apart.

Closeness is a moving target. You can’t stop working on it just because you think you have it.

See Also: 6 Hobbies For Couples That Can Strengthen Your Relationship

Sex has become like a well-loved recipe

sex in relationship

If your intimate life has a set routine and you could and possibly have done it in your sleep, you are probably too comfortable. Just because you achieve a successful…ahem…end result does not mean you have had a successful experience. Sex is far more enjoyable when there are a few new moves here and there. So, throw out the recipe and try exploring a bit. You might find yourself surprised by the result.

There is a difference between trusting someone so much that you can be completely comfortable in their presence and being so comfortable that you seem not to care. That difference can be a very fine line.

If several or all of the above points ring a bell, you have probably crossed that line. Try changing things up and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by your partner’s reaction and what you get in return.

See Also: 6 Signs You’re In A Long-Term Relationship

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